Embrace
by nocloudypooh
Summary: One-shot. Green and Crystal were working together in the lab when Crystal started to cry. They ended up in an embrace, safe in each other's arms. JadeCrystalline shipping (Crystal x Green)


Green looks at her out of the corner of his eyes. He never did let himself look at her for longer than necessary. _This is good enough_ , he told himself firmly, while noticing all the small gestures she always make when she's working - the way her brows crease together when she's reading, the way she twirls her pen when her hands are idle, the way she looks up to the ceiling and close her eyes whenever she's thinking.

Sometimes Green wonders how he manages to look at her so often, and yet still get work done. He silently thanks his grandfather though, for putting Crystal and him in the same office room to work in. Maybe he is efficient because of this rather than in spite of this, he muses. No doubt he will spend his day wondering what Crystal is doing otherwise.

With Crystal around, Green feels comfortable. He is more than a stoic demeanor, more than an impassive personality. He is Green, the one who cares deeply for others inside, the one that will risk everything to protect the people he loves, the one who holds passion in his desires and yet he never let them control him.

Crystal feels it too, sensing the real Green underneath, understanding him better the longer they work together. She could never work out what it is she's feeling each time the both of them have a conversation. She thinks they're alike, and perhaps it's true that birds of a feather flock together, when she finds herself eagerly awaiting the next time she can share her insights with Green or exchange snippets of information or friendly debates.

It doesn't help that Green has a pair of enthralling green eyes, eyes that pierce right into her heart. The same eyes that will melt any other girl. But she's Crystal, and she doesn't just melt under a person's gaze. She shook her head. _Focus_ Crystal, she told herself sternly, _there're lots of things to do_. But she couldn't. She thinks of the butterflies in her stomach when he looks at her, thinks of how much she enjoys spending time with him, thinks of how she can't imagine not having him around in her life...

And she muses, _Does he think of me in the same way?_

It startles Crystal to feel someone brush against her arms, sending shocks up to her brain and body. Turning her chair around, she found herself looking into those green eyes that she had been thinking of just moments before. She blinks up at him and saw something across his eyes? _Is he concerned about me?_ she wondered.

For the first time in a long while, she finds herself losing her composed self, unsure of how best to respond.

"You okay? You seemed dazed for a while now. Not feeling well?", the concerns in his voice matching those of his eyes.

"Oh. Um. It's nothing. Just... just thinking about something and I must have gotten spaced out. I'll get back to work now," Crystal tried to reply him with smile.

And then it happened suddenly. Green wasn't sure what made him do it but his hand reached out and grabbed Crystal's wrist, stopping her from turning her chair back around. His eyes found her widened crystalline blue ones, and he wills himself to not break the eye contact, not to get lost in the depths of her eyes.

"Doesn't sound like it's nothing to me."

".."

Crystal pauses and feel her defences shatter as she looked into his green eyes. Tears started to well up in her eyes when she realised that it was hurting her deep inside to have him so close to her but not to have him for herself. _This is stupid. Control, Crystal. Get a grip on yourself. You should not be acting like_ this, she pleaded with it was all in vain as she pull away from his gaze just as the first tears rolled down her cheeks, rendering her incapable of speech and everything except to sit there looking at her knees and let her emotions run.

The girl felt rather than saw the boy moved. Surprised though Green was at her sudden tears, he did the most reasonable thing that came to his mind. Next moment, she is wrapped around a pair of strong hands while she stained his shirt wet with her tears.

"Don't cry," he whispered, "you'll make my heart break."

Crystal sniffed and let out a small hiccup. She felt more tears flowing as she raise her arms to hug the boy in return, pulling him closer, feeling safe and knowing that she will truly be alright once she has calmed herself down.

...

"Did you mean what you said?" Crystal asked, sometime after she has stopped crying when they were no longer in embrace.

Green looked at her and saw that she still looked pretty despite her red, puffy eyes. He gazes at her for a short while more, before giving a nod back in response.

They end up embracing each other again, squeezing each other tight, yearning for this moment to last forever, and that they never have to let go. They eventually did but all these while neither spoke nor made any attempts at communicating, content to spend the time together embracing in silence.

There was no need to do so, because at that moment they could understand each other perfectly well without the use of words.

* * *

 **A/N: My first story that I came up with the other day before going to sleep. I know it's not a conventional pairing (cracked for that matter), but I like to imagine how these two can fit together with each other. And really, there are just too much stories out there about conventional Mangaquest/Oldrival shipping. [Not that I don't like them, but I just like a little more variation in imagining characters' relationship.**


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